Efim Geller

Efim Geller was a Soviet chess player and world-class grandmaster at his peak. He won the Soviet Championship twice (in 1955 and 1979) and was a Candidate for the World Championship on six occasions (1953, 1956, 1962, 1965, 1968, and 1971). He won four Ukrainian SSR Championship titles (in 1950, 1957, 1958, and 1959) and shared first in the 1991 World Seniors' Championship, winning the title outright in 1992. His wife Oksana was a ballet dancer while his son Alexander was also a chess master. Geller was coach to World Champions Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov. He was also an author. Geller began to make his mark in the late 1940s, as he won the USSR Championship semifinal qualifier at Tbilisi 1949 with 11,16, thus advancing to the final later that year. His finals debut was sensational at URS-ch17 at Moscow; as a virtual unknown he tied for 3rd–4th places with 1219, behind only winners David Bronstein and Vasily Smyslov. Geller defeated such established players as Semyon Furman, Isaac Boleslavsky, Alexander Kotov, Salo Flohr, fellow finals debutant Tigran Petrosian, Viacheslav Ragozin, and Grigory Levenfish. Despite this showing, he was obliged to return to the semifinal level the next year, but advanced with a third-place finish in the 1950 qualifier at Kyiv with 9,15. At URS-ch18 at Moscow 1950, Geller made 9,17 for a shared 7th–10th place; the winner was Paul Keres. Also in 1950, Geller won the Ukrainian SSR Championship in Kyiv, the first of his four titles in that event; he repeated from 1957 to 1959, with all three events in Kyiv. Geller in 1950 made his international debut at the Przepiorka Memorial at Iwonicz Zdroj with 19 for seventh place in a powerful field; Keres won again. ¹ Geller continued to play chess into the 1990s, winning the 1992 World Senior Championship, before passing away in 1998. He was also notable for his strong score against Bobby Fischer in their games from 1961-70. He was regarded as one of the best players in the world who never became world champion, and one of the greatest experts on the King's Indian Defense.